Caroline Penn/Panos, Kiribati

Chapter 4 - summary
Pacific islands foretell future of climate change

Scientists now describe climate change as “inevitable” – and Pacific islands are on the front line. Conventional development risks fuelling vulnerability. So future development decisions must be viewed through the lens of risk reduction. Far more resources and political will are needed to protect exposed coastal communities from the worst of the weather.

The latest reported data show that the number of people in the Oceania region affected by weather-related disasters has soared by 65 times over the past 30 years. Cyclones, droughts and floods threaten to make life unviable on many islands long before rising seas swallow them up.

Over the next century, global surface temperatures are projected to climb at a rate without precedent in the last 10,000 years. Sea levels are projected to rise between 9 and 88 centimetres. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities”.

Sea-level rise is already eroding coastlines, where critical infrastructure and populations are most concentrated. Coastal flooding is inundating farmland and fresh water supplies with salt, forcing some islanders to consider abandoning their homes forever. In the Marshall Islands, farmers are resorting to growing crops in old oil drums to avoid planting in saline soils. On the Carteret atolls, off Papua New Guinea, rising seas have cut one island in half and left 1,500 people dependent on food aid from the mainland.

Meanwhile, higher sea temperatures are threatening to kill off coral reefs, which attract tourists, maintain natural sea defences, supply beach sand and provide habitats for marine life essential to the local diet. According to the IPCC, “the thermal tolerance of reef-building corals will be exceeded within the next few decades”.

Climate change will trigger more intense, frequent and unpredictable hazards. Across Oceania, while reported disasters have remained constant between the 1970s and 1990s, their impacts are getting far worse. Droughts and extreme temperatures affected 71,000 people during the 1970s and 1980s, but over 13 million people in the 1990s. Cyclones affected 18 times more people in the 1990s than in the 1970s, while floods and landslides affected nine times more. Either disasters are becoming more extreme, or people are less well protected than before.

Research by Commonwealth scientists suggests that “under climate change, there is likely to be a more El Niño-like mean state over the Pacific”. This will further increase the threat of cyclones and drought. During the 1982-83 El Niño, rainfall across the western Pacific was 70-90 per cent below average. Changes in temperature and rainfall are also encouraging diseases such as dengue fever and malaria. Pacific island nations share common vulnerabilities which hamper their ability to adapt to climate change: small size and (often) low elevation; wide distribution and remoteness; proneness to natural disasters; rapid urbanization; increasing environmental degradation; limited natural, human and financial resources; loss of traditional coping mechanisms; and export-dependent economies.

Existing adaptation options may be unfeasible. Structural protection for coastlines (e.g. breakwaters and beach nourishment using shipped-in sand) is expensive. The alternative is to abandon shorelines – “managed retreat”. But for the lowest-lying Pacific atolls, there is nowhere to retreat to. Most critical infrastructure is within 100 metres of the coast. Replanting protective coastal mangroves is a cheaper alternative. Other adaptation measures must include: early warning for cyclones and droughts; water management and rationing; rainwater harvesting; preventive health care and education to combat diseases.

Initiatives at various levels are under way to combat climate change-related risks. But more resources and political urgency are needed. Progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is slow. Costs of adaptation are unknown – guesses range from tens to hundreds of billions of dollars per year worldwide. Last year, however, rich countries pledged to provide just US$ 0.4 billion per year by 2005 to help developing countries adapt to climate change. By contrast, industrialized nations spend US$ 70-80 billion per year on energy subsidies, including for fossil fuels.

During the 1990s, a UN disaster reduction programme established national disaster management offices and plans across the region. But the offices are often understaffed and fail to consult with disaster-prone communities. National disaster plans are often unworkable since they are not written by local people, nor backed up by sufficient budgets.

Since governmental assistance concentrates on disaster response, people usually have to prepare for disasters on their own. And for remoter islands, relief may take days to arrive. So community-based disaster mitigation and preparedness will prove a vital survival strategy.

The Red Cross emphasizes community-based self-reliance (CBSR). Villagers are taught to assess their own vulnerabilities and capacities. They are encouraged to draw maps of their local community, identifying vulnerable locations (e.g., houses on steep slopes, deep water lagoons) and vulnerable people (for example,. the elderly and disabled). They also map resources such as strong buildings to use as evacuation centres. Islanders are trained to set up disaster preparedness committees and plans, and receive first-aid training.

Indigenous coping strategies are crucial in promoting disaster resilience. Before cyclones hit, islanders instinctively prepare containers of food and water, cut down overhanging branches, erect windbreaks and lash their houses to trees. One non-governmental organization in Fiji communicates preparedness messages through community theatre – a method rooted in the way that islanders learn their history, through songs, dance, rituals and legends handed down from one generation to the next.

Tuvalu’s environment officer fears that the “shift to a modern western lifestyle is making people more vulnerable to the climate. They have lost their ways of coping and managing”. He adds: “Both climate change and development are killing the island.”

As populations increase, the lack of decent land and housing has led to more squatter settlements. New homes are being built on plots exposed to flooding and landslides. Local development priorities can be “risk-blind”. For example, Tuvalu recently spent US$ 3 million (one-third of its annual budget) on a road-building programme, but only US$ 107,000 on new homes, despite a housing shortage.

Over-dependence on a few key exports is risky. Tourism and cash-crops can account for 50-75 per cent of all foreign exchange earned by Pacific islands. Yet these industries are seriously threatened by fluctuations in global markets and weather. Cultivating hardy local crops such as taro, yam and sweet potato may prove essential.

The threats posed by global warming to the people and economies of Pacific islands are varied and far-reaching. A new development paradigm is needed. Every policy decision must pass the acid test of whether it increases or decreases vulnerability to climate change. Communities at risk must be at the centre of development planning if it is to succeed. Urgent priorities include:

• accelerating Global assessment of the costs of adaptation to climate change in poor countries.
• New funds from rich countries for poor-country adaptation, equal to the value of the subsidies given by rich countries to domestic fossil fuel industries.
• Development models based on risk reduction, incorporating indigenous coping strategies.
• Disaster awareness campaigns with materials available in local languages.
• Coordinated plans for relocating threatened communities with appropriate political, legal and financial resources. process.
  
  

Andrew Simms, policy director at the New Economics Foundation, and an advisor and writer on environment, development and globalization issues, was principal contributor to this chapter and box.